The Art of Sound at DC9 in Washington, D.C.Melina Afzal runs sound at DC9 in Washington, D.C., and she told us all about it...

How long have you been running sound? How did you get into it?

I was at the right place at the right time. There was a venue called the Palace Wonders. It hosted vaudeville/circus/burlesque shows. One day in a conversation, the owner asked if I wanted to run sound. I told her I knew nothing about sound. Her response was, 'You DJ, the board is the same as a mixer.' In that same conversation, the manager of the venue next door, the Red and Black--where I did DJ--asked if I wanted to run sound for the live music shows. It all started with running a couple of microphones and cues at the Palace of Wonders. Mixing bands is what I fell in love with. I picked up the Yamaha Sound reinforcement book and ran with it from there. A year later the two venues merged to a larger cap room and bigger artists--I got to build and expand on my skills before moving over to DC9. I am grateful, these two women opened the door for me.

BTW, it was a 24-channel Allen & Heath analog board. Thinking of it as a DJ mixer helped ease the anxiety of ‘what do all those knobs do?’

How did you get hooked up with DC9?

I first interned at DC9. When our sister venue closed, I transitioned over.

Any particular highlights? Which bands have been the best to work with?

So many highlights, a few to mention. First, I enjoy going to work. I am lucky to work with new-to- up and coming bands, to well-known artists who are working on new lesser-known projects. And we have an amazing local music scene here. Another highlight is, I like the production and process of working in sound, i.e. getting bands set up, making sure their monitors are right, sound checking, or dialing in vocals.* Working in a smaller room allows me to interact directly with artists. I get to build a rapport which goes a long way on both sides.  As a bonus, I work at the best venue in D.C. with hilarious co-workers. 

* Side note here. I used to struggle with getting vocals above instruments. The feedback was horrible. I came across an article [I can’t recall who wrote it] discussing sound-checking vocals first as a more practical approach. Since then, no feedback and perfect vocals. 

Many touring and local bands over the years stand out as being the best to work with. Narrowing it down to this year, Gruff Rhys and Billy Allen and the Pollies are two artists I enjoyed working with. A notable act, Captured by Robots. It was my first day interning at DC9.

How would you describe the acoustics/layout at DC9?

The building is a 124-year-old brick-row building. Our show floor is 230 cap room. It has a corner stage with carpeting on the stage walls. The ceiling is wood with rafters – which absorb the sound nicely. The rest of the room is drywall. It is a small warm room and yet mighty in sound.  

What gear do you use?

We have a M32 digital console, 4x JBL PRX 615M powered flown mains (15” + 1.5” Horn; 2 x VOID Sub Woofer cabs: 2 x18” per box powered by Tactical Audio TA2500 Power Amp; 4 x Electro-Voice EKX-15” 2-WAY Powered speaker wedge (15” + 1.5” Horn). Powered by Powersoft K 10 series amp. I use Sony MDr- 7506 headphone. 

For more information, visit dc9.club.The post The Art of Sound at DC9 in Washington, D.C. first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Image Line FL Studio 2024 now available Image Line have announced a major update for FL Studio as well as introducing plug-ins and virtual instruments to their FL Cloud service.

YouTube reportedly offering “lump sums of cash” to major labels for AI music licensing dealYouTube has reportedly been flashing its cash to the “big three” major labels in hopes of rolling out AI music licensing deals with them.
This isn’t YouTube’s first venture into AI though, as it formerly launched AI tool Dream Track last year. The feature allowed users to create music using AI voice emulations of famous artists, but just 10 signed up for the test phase. Those involved included John Legend, Charlie Puth, and Charli XCX.

READ MORE: Will RIAA’s lawsuit against Udio and Suno really be the win we’re hoping for?

It seems YouTube’s next AI move looks to be a little more robust. The platform, which is owned by Google, has been in talks with Sony, Warner and Universal to try to convince more artists to allow their music to be used in training AI software, according to several sources who have been in contact with The Financial Times.
The FT reports that these proposals are being met with scepticism: “The industry is wrestling with this. Technically the companies have the copyrights, but we have to think through how to play it,” an executive ‘at a large music company’ tells the outlet. “We don’t want to be seen as a Luddite.”
YouTube comments, “We’re not looking to expand Dream Track but are in conversations with labels about other experiments.” Sources say this could involve YouTube’s Shorts platform, but talks are ongoing. If a deal was to go ahead, the sources say the licence would apply to a select group of artists, and it would be up to the labels to encourage those artists to participate in new AI projects.
In other AI news, TuneCore has newly rolled out its very own mastering service which utilises AI technology to produce “professional-quality tracks” for artists on a budget.
TuneCore Mastering’s AI was not trained on any copyrighted material, in line with its “four pillars for responsible AI engagement”: consent, control, compensation, and transparency. It’s available for all TuneCore artists on a pay-per-use model for $5 per track.
The post YouTube reportedly offering “lump sums of cash” to major labels for AI music licensing deal appeared first on MusicTech.

Martin Garrix, Peggy Gou and Four Tet among 300 artists announced for 2024 Amsterdam Dance EventAmsterdam Dance Event (ADE) organisers have unveiled the first wave of artists to appear at this year’s conference, with big names including Martin Garrix, Peggy Gou and Four Tet all set to appear.
The event – which will take place 16-20 October this year – will also see appearances from Boys Noize, Tiësto, Bonobo, Jamie Jones, Skream, Rebekah, Jeff Mills, Carlita, Marco Carola and Marcel Dettman.

READ MORE: TuneCore launches pay-per-use AI-powered mastering service to help artists on a tight budget

Amsterdam Dance Event is one of the biggest dates in the calendar for EDM culture, with over 1,000 events scheduled to take place across Amsterdam, Netherlands during the weekend. These will include performances and DJ sets, as well as panel discussions surrounding dance music.
Last year’s ADE saw performances from the likes of deadmau5, Grandmaster Flash, The Blessed Madonna, Carl Cox, Armin Van Buuren and loads more.
ADE also plays host to important discussions about everything from the current state of dance music culture to production tips.
Credit: Stephen-vb Fotografie
During last year’s event, producer Afrojack spoke about why budding producers shouldn’t strive for perfection but instead embrace their mistakes.
“I am where I am today also because of the missteps,” he said. “I believe that any misstep is always a lesson. So it’s always good.
“Like, for example, I didn’t put my name on [David Guetta’s] Titanium or I got muscled out of the [Chris Brown’s] Look At Me Now production credits or Beyonce’s Run The World because of my lack of experience, but having that experience taught me how to deal with these types of things, and also taught me what type of person I want to be, because I know the different ways there are to go about business.”
2023’s ADE also saw German DJ Claptone’s first ever live interview.
More information about 2024’s Amsterdam Dance Event will be released in due course, so make sure you stay tuned to MusicTech or visit Amsterdam Dance Event’s website to stay in the loop.
The post Martin Garrix, Peggy Gou and Four Tet among 300 artists announced for 2024 Amsterdam Dance Event appeared first on MusicTech.

Soundtheory Kraftur: Top-quality saturation and clipping from the makers of Gullfoss$99 ($69 introductory price until 1st September), soundtheory.com
Soundtheory’s Gullfoss plugin was released in 2018 and has become a staple in many studios, thanks to how it dynamically balances and unmasks audio with ease. Although we’ve seen similar plugins from other developers (most notably Soothe), it was extremely innovative at the time of release.

READ MORE: Review: Oeksound Soothe2

Six years later, Soundtheory is finally releasing its second plugin. Kraftur is a multiband saturator and clipper, but is it as groundbreaking as Gullfoss?

What does Kraftur do?
Kraftur makes your audio sound fuller and louder, letting you tame transient peaks while retaining dynamic punch. Its natural home is across the mix bus to subtly boost and enhance your masters, but it can also be used when mixing individual instruments to add presence or thickness.
Kraftur works through a combination of single- and multi-band saturation, which you can seamlessly blend with the dry signal via a unique wet/dry triangle on the user interface. There’s also a separate soft clipper to further shape wayward peaks.
Kraftur’s user interface is immediately striking. Its pleasing balance of muted greys and colourful visual feedback is complemented by orange, cyan, and yellow elements for its three bands. A high dynamic range (HDR) can be enabled to make the graphics pop, and a motion blur on the triangular blend control gives us some 80s VHS nostalgia. It’s just a shame that the plugin window is a little large and currently isn’t resizable.
Kraftur main GUI
How do you use Kraftur?
Think of Kraftur as two parallel saturation modules (single- and multi-band) followed by a clipper.
The saturation modules share a main Drive control that pushes into both processors, plus Knee and Offset controls to adjust the transfer curve and target just the peaks, or the quieter parts and the whole body of the sound. The multi-band saturator then adds further controls to adjust crossover frequencies, solo each of the three bands, and also independently change the thresholds (labelled as Low, Mid and High Shift).
Single-band saturation might be useful when you want to add a touch of aggression, where low-end peaks lead to harmonic distortion across the whole spectrum. This helps glue a track together as it feels like the whole mix is responding as one.
However, if you want to reduce the intermodulation distortion effect, then you can get cleaner results by using multi-band and having the low-end just distort itself. The Shift sliders can help further, set to drive the low-end less than the mids and tops, if that’s what you’re going for. Or you can use the triangular blend control to mix both styles alongside the dry signal for the best of both worlds.
A tasty-sounding clipper sits at the end of the chain. And we mean the end. The dry signal component from the triangle blend will be clipped, and even the final Gain control is placed pre-clipper. Although this affords an extra control to drive the clipper harder, it would have been more useful to have a final output knob or slider to be used for global volume matching. Thankfully, a Match button is effective for re-balancing the output in real time as you change other parameters. This make it easier to gauge just how much you’re crushing your audio.
Kraftur clipper plugin
How to read Kraftur’s visual feedback
Kraftur’s visual feedback is especially helpful when tweaking settings.
There are input and output meters for the single-band and three multi-band signals, plus a visually brighter section for when you drive the signal harder. These are combined with the large main window that features a transfer curve and input and output histograms.
It’s an unusual way of presenting the information, but once you wrap your head around it, you can quickly refine the threshold and knee settings to hit just the peaks of the signal. Unfortunately though, the lack of gain reduction metering for the clipper makes it tricky to judge how hard you’re chopping into the peaks.
Kraftur multi-band saturator
How does Kraftur perform?
We put Kraftur to the test on a range of audio, including full mixes and individual instrument parts.
Coming up with compelling-sounding results is a breeze, and can easily be blended to taste. Drum transients are tamed, the body of sounds is thickened, and you can do some serious peak reduction without drastically changing the audio.
We test it alongside a few similar tools, and find the distortion has a slightly more ‘grabby’, faintly gated sound that wraps around hits to bolster the transients but without over-thickening the tails. This all results in a subtly tighter sound than the competitors.
The clipper is clean up to a point, but then it saturates slightly sooner with bass-heavy material, albeit with a pleasing, analogue-like behaviour. Even when set to full, there’s still a touch of softness to the knee curve, so the option for a completely hard knee might have been useful, alongside separate knee settings for each band.
Oversampling is on by default with no option to switch it off, yet somehow the plugin runs with zero latency, which is seriously impressive.
Kraftur uses mixed-phase filters that exhibit a mostly linear phase response, but it means you can’t use Kraftur for parallel processing on a bus without getting a phasey sound. CPU usage is moderate, so (depending on your system) you wouldn’t want to use lots of instances, but you could get away with a few.
Kraftur triangle blend
Do you really need another clipper?
On the surface, Kraftur looks fairly versatile, with its two saturators and clipper in a single plugin. However, when you compare it with FabFilter’s Saturn 2 (also a multi-band saturator, but with 28 distortion styles), or Kazrog’s KClip3, then you realise that Kraftur is a little more limited in terms of harmonic variation.
Thankfully, at $99 it’s priced competitively for a mastering-grade plugin (especially if you make use of the $69 introductory price), and it performs well at transparent volume thickening.
Early users have noted Soundtheory’s relatively unusual licence and transfer policies, where the licence is valid only for 25 years, rather than perpetual ownership. Countering this, the brand says its policies aid in ensuring longevity of its plugins, without asking users to pay for updates. As an example, says a representative on Gearspace, Gullfoss is currently at version 1.11.5, despite the brand releasing updates that “could have easily rebadged as Gullfoss 2”. For most users, the licensing and transfer arrangements won’t be an issue.
Do you need Kratfur? Well, there are plenty of decent clippers and saturators already out there, so you may already have one or two that you’re happy with. However, if you’re mixing or mastering genres that benefit from being pushed a little louder, then it’s always useful to have multiple options, as certain tools will work better with particular flavours of music than others.
When it suits the source material, Kraftur is an excellent plugin that helps you to get cleaner and louder tracks, so we’d happily add it as an option in our tool kit.

Key features

3-band multi-band saturator and clipper plugin
VST, VST3, AU, AAX Native (requires iLok account)
Add clarity, punch or warmth to any material
Blend between single-band, multi-band and dry signals
Separate threshold controls for each band
Reduced aliasing and intermodulation distortion due to unique oversampling method
Flexible control of the distortion curve
Match mode for auto volume compensation
VisionTone colour rendering pipeline based on human perception

The post Soundtheory Kraftur: Top-quality saturation and clipping from the makers of Gullfoss appeared first on MusicTech.

Audio Merge’s upcoming CF67B filter Audio Merge will soon begin production of their Altec 9067B-inspired filter unit, following a successful crowdfunding campaign that saw them achieve their goal in just three hours.

Dorian mode in popular music. #musicproduction #Musicians #Education #Composing

Basel Committee finalizes crypto exposure rules for banksThe committee is unveiling the standards later in July, culminating a yearslong process.

HealthEquity says data breach is an ‘isolated incident’HealthEquity said in an 8-K filing with the SEC that it detected “anomalous behavior by a personal use device belonging to a business partner.”
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Responsive LCD Backlights With A Little Lateral ThinkingLCD televisions are a technological miracle, but if they have an annoying side it’s that some of them are a bit lacklustre when it comes to displaying black. [Mousa] has a solution, involving a small LCD and a bit of lateral thinking.
These screens work by the LCD panel being placed in front of a bright backlight, and only letting light through at bright parts of the picture. Since LCD isn’t a perfect attenuator, some of the light can make its way through, resulting in those less than perfect blacks. More recent screens replace the bright white backlight with an array of LEDs that light up with the image, but the electronics to make that happen are not exactly trivial.
The solution? Find a small LCD panel and feed it from the same HDMI source as a big panel. Then place an array of LDRs on the front of the small LCD, driving an array of white LEDs through transistor drivers to make a new responsive backlight. We’re not sure we’d go to all this trouble, but it certainly looks quite cool as you can see below the break.
This may be the first responsive backlight we’ve brought you, but more than one Ambilight clone has graced these pages.

Erica Synths Launches Nightverb Desktop Reverb UnitErica Synths has officially launched its Nightverb desktop reverb unit, created in collaboration with 112dB. Nightverb is a new stereo reverb desktop unit that features a unique and musical custom algorithm and powerful save/recall functions for all parameters — all in a sleek aluminum case to aesthetically match Erica Synths' successful lineup of desktop units.

Redefining reverbIn creating Nightverb, the developmental focus was on the musical aspect of the effect – which offers extremely long decay tails without loss of harmonic integrity. Since multiple parameters can be adjusted at once, notes can be played individually and held in chords, pitch-shifted at a whim or used to create massive, ambient textures.Features: 

A unique, very musical stereo reverb algorithm by 112dB.com

Erica Synths custom DSP engine

12 parameters for detailed reverb design

All parameters are MIDI CC controllable

2-way MIDI communication (parameters can also transmit MIDI CC messages)

Freeze function with chromatic tuning – playable via MIDI notes (MIDI keyboard)

A configurable footswitch input

30 factory presets and 70 user preset slots

Preset export via USB

Dimensions: 23cm x 14,5cm x 7cm (including knobs)

Weight: 833g 

What's included

NIGHTVERB reverb effects unit

Universal 12VDC wall wart adapter with the power cable

User manual
The post Erica Synths Launches Nightverb Desktop Reverb Unit first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Binaural beats are known for their positive effects on the brain. Universal Music has invented tech that can generate and add them to existing audio tracksMBW has unearthed a recent patent application from Universal that could have a significant impact on the wellness space
Source

FLOSS Weekly Episode 790: Better Bash Scripting with AmberThis week Jonathan Bennett and Dan Lynch chat with Paweł Karaś about Amber, a modern scripting language that compiles into a Bash script. Want to write scripts with built-in error handling, or prefer strongly typed languages? Amber may be for you!

– https://github.com/Ph0enixKM/Amber
– https://amber-lang.com/
– https://docs.amber-lang.com/
Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show Right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like use to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.

Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.
If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.
Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:

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You can now make takedown requests for AI-generated YouTube videos that mimic your likenessThe video platform is working to mitigate the worst impacts of AI content, even as it works to develop AI tools
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Accentize update dxRevive Pro The latest version of dxRevive Pro updates two of the plug-ins algorithms and adds an entirely new one in the form of EQ Restore.